Organizations are increasingly using electronic documents as business processes become increasingly automated and business is conducted over the Internet or local networks. Electronic documents that establish obligations or responsibility often provide legal proof of knowledge, statements, and agreements through the use of electronic signatures. With electronic documents, current systems may provide application or process level security to provide accountability and access control to each portion of the electronic compound document. But these security mechanisms require that the electronic document is accessed through an application that includes the appropriate access logic which, in many cases, requires interpretation of the document structure and content.